About the Book :

The behaviour of children within ages defined in most countries without regard to biological maturity or social usefulness is often concentrated on their failure and the failure of their carers to conform to what their societies expect of them. This study attempts to show that children and their carers are genetically and ethologically channeled into behaviour to support the small groups in which they live. For most of our known global history children have been seen as economic, social and status assets to these small groups and their value assessed in proportion to their eventual contribution as adults. They are not taught to behave in contributory ways but are absorbed into their need to be useful in terms of all those with whom they associate. Cross-culturally the growth of individualism and the decline of usefulness of children for their parents have led to pro-social behaviour being much reduced to immediate benefits to children and for the small group in which they spend less and less time. Teaching children to be useful to an impersonal society in which they have little interest is an industry in modern states. Perhaps our conclusion must be that children will only behave in ways that their society deems correct when they sense on their own that it is profitable to do so. The ethical values which have historically maintained the necessary unity of the small group have faded with the growth of survival through secondary employment and State welfare provisions.

About Author :

Ralph Tanner has a B.Sc. and Diploma in Social Anthropology from Oxford University and a D.Phil in Law from Stockholm University. He has done fieldwork in Thailand, the Philippines, Guyana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya as well as in Britain and Eire. He was Chairman of the East African Institute of Social Research and a Lecturer in Comparative Religion in the University of London. He has published books on Murder in Uganda, Witchcraft Killings and Religious Change in Tanzania, the Roman Catholic Mass, contemporary religious change and co-authored two books on the biology of religion, two on the recreation of tribal identity and religious change and another on religion and the environment. He has written numerous articles on the social aspects of religious change, translation and language use, as well as on behavioural theories in the Journal of Modern African Studies, Africa, Journal of Social Sciences, Nordic Journal of African Studies, Anthropos and Studia Missionalia and others. He is currently working on the issues involved in social science fieldwork in developing societies by nationals and non-nationals and the connections between spirituality, well-being and health.